


The Name of the Prose

by Taz



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Highlander: The Series
Genre: M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-03-09
Updated: 2010-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-31 10:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taz/pseuds/Taz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A day at the beach. Methos meets an old frenemy. Duncan makes new friends. Issues are worked on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Name of the Prose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [devo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devo/gifts).



It was a day of gusting airs, brooding sky and gray-green surf—not a day that many would have picked to spend at the beach. Sometimes, though, it’s good to be reminded that wind and tide can put even the timeless in their place: _mortal or immortal,_ _we are greater than both of you._

With his cuffs rolled above the knees, Duncan waded out to the point. The wind whipped his hair and the waves foamed, soaking him to the thighs, and sucking his toes into the sand on their way out.

On the walk back, his pocket were loaded down with a small boy’s treasures, a smooth black stone prized out of the sand, and a sliver of sea glass green as cheap jade. He waved to the other souls who had braved the wind—a fisherman with three heavy poles butted into the rocks on the jetty, and an older couple, poking in the tidal flotsam for shells and driftwood. He’d left Methos bundled in an Anorak, disposed with a book, and found him asleep curled on his side on the old Hudson’s Bay Blanket.

Duncan sat down, wrapped his arms around his knees and let the breakers hypnotize him.

An eternity later, Methos rolled over, snuggled against him for a moment. Then, with his eyes still closed, he rolled on to his back, arched, stretched, and announced, “I’m hungry,” to the world.

He held the pose until Duncan bent over and nipped his nose.

“Me too,” he said. (Salt air sharpened all of Duncan’s appetites.) But Methos collapsed, boneless as a jellyfish.

“Food. I want food,” he wailed. “Hot, peppery, creamy, crabby, buttery soup, and…”

The wind carried shrieks of disappointment and laughter. He stopped , his face shuttered.

“What else do you want?” Duncan prompted.

“Crusty bread and black beer.”

“‘Were paradise enow,’” Duncan sighed, and dumped the sand out of his shoes.

They gathered their things together and ambled up the stony ridge toward the parking lot.

So much for crawling under the blanket and snogging.

The parking lot was nearly empty, which made it a perfect platform for the three people who were trying to launch a huge bat-kite, with far more enthusiasm than skill.

A dark haired man and a blonde were stretching the kite’s wings to the wind. The skinny one was backing up, letting out the string and shouting, _“’ould it! ‘ould it!”_ And then, _“Le’ ‘er rip!”_

The kite leapt free, mounting the sky to the cheering of the ground crew and, just as it seemed it would only soar ever higher, turned and plunged into the blacktop.

“Oh, bad luck,” Duncan commiserated. Methos was silent. Duncan glanced over to see if he had observed the little existential drama; clearly, had; the expression on his face was intent, oddly perplexed, and by no means pleased. “What…?” Duncan started to ask and was left questioning the air as Methos took off with a lung that splattered sand behind him.

Methos was running…

_… from clutching hands, from blows and screams… from blood and fire and blacked flesh._

To the east, only four blocks away, the sky was dark with smoke: the Jewish quarter was aflame.

Methos experienced a flash of relief: he still had his knife, but he was in no shape for a fight. The pavement in front of the temple of Serapis was strewn with lost sandals where the mob had been here and passed on.

Incited by that fanatic, Simon Lechter, who claimed to follow a gentle man, the rioters had flung bricks and stones and broken tiles. One such missile had smashed into Methos’s right eye, leaving it temporarily blind. Healing was underway, but the socket was still filled with blood and his mind conceived occasional flashes of light as the nerve re-generated and the eyeball mended itself.

At the top of the steps, the great bronze ceremonial doors were always closed, but the small door set within them was never locked. Even today, it stood ajar. He ran into the hall and down the aisle, stopping to catch his breath only to realize that where there should have been soft gold lights and priests attending, there was shadow and silence.

He took it in, and the back of his neck turned cold as the hair stood up. The mob had been here, too, and every one of the hanging lamps had been smashed. Both experience and instinct screamed: _Get out! Get out! This is no time to hesitate._ They will come back!

Oil and shards of glass made the marble floor treacherous as he loped to the back of the hall. Against the wall, between the portrait of Alexander and the map of the heavens, the alabaster shrine of Serapis was still standing, but the golden statue of the god had been thrown down and the head hacked away, exposing the hollow wooden core. Beside it, a body lay in a pool of blood. One of the librarians had tried to stop the desecration.

There was a door behind the shrine that gave the librarians and scholars access to the stairs. He tried it, but it was locked—or blocked—from the inside. Hopefully on purpose. And locked was not an insurmountable obstacle. It had always been locked after dark, but to an agile young scholar slipping in after the wine shops closed, one who knew where the handholds in the alabaster were, it was easy to clamber to the top of the shrine and, from top of the shrine, to reach the gallery railing and pull himself over.

Irreverent perhaps, but, under the circumstances, he didn’t think Serapis would mind.

He slithered over the rail, dropped to the floor, and froze. His ear had caught a sound like harsh breathing, or the dying wheeze of some huge animal…it faded as he listened.

He climbed to his feet.

Fourteen bookrooms opened off of this gallery, seven to a side. Each of them was dedicated to a particular Muse or to one of the old librarians of renown. His goal was the one called Clio, last on the left. He had been working that morning when the invitation to attend the Philosopher’s lecture had arrived.

As he passed Melpomene, a sudden draft of wind sprang up. It churned about his ankles, strong enough to make the inescapable sand sting his skin…there was the eerie breathing again; the bellows of Vulcan’s own forge might huff like that.

And then it was fading, again, along with the wind.

A mystery, but not one he time to waste on.

Traversing the gallery, he came to Clio’s door, and saw with a sense of relief that nothing inside had been tampered with. The diptych, the pens, the inkpot, as well as the stack of scrolls he had been working with that morning, lay just as he had left them.

In the Serapeum, each of the bookrooms was lined with racks of diamond shaped pigeon holes where the scrolls were stacked. Each was furnished with a table and a lamp stand for the use of the scholars. Additionally, within this one room, one of the walls was fitted with shelves to hold the chests of leather-bound codices. It was there that Methos went to kneel.

He pulled out a chest and opened it. From under the codices inside, he pulled two leather packs and set them on the table. These contained things that experience taught might be useful in the event of an unexpectedly precipitous departure, including one essential item—his sword.

He took it out, buckled the belt around his waist, and covered it with a cloak. Since there was room now, he swept the scrolls on the table into to the pack. There was no time to sort them out, and one of them was the work of an author with whom he had once shared very memorable evening. The whole time his personal genius was exhorting him: “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

He obeyed.

Slinging the packs across his shoulders, he ran back toward the stairwell. But as he passed Calliope, it happened again: that breathing—louder this time—as well as the wind and the stinging dust! He stopped, as it died down, and against his better judgment, drew his sword, and cautiously opened the door.

Within, squeezed between the racks and the table was stood a shrine. It was painted Egyptian blue, and there were obscure hieroglyphs carved out in silver along the top edge.

He didn’t know if it was the source of the wind and noise, but it certainly hadn’t been there yesterday. Warily, he approached. As he reached out to touch it, one of the doors flew open, emitting a flare of gold lightning and the figure of a man. A man? His eye was dazzled to tears. Only gods and immortals emerged alive from celestial fire!

Methos jumped back, and raised his sword. Confident, though he was, that he had never met a god before, he tried to keep an open mind. He had certainly met a few men and women who had claimed to be gods. On occasion, he had discussed the subject with them at length. Lightning had attended a few of the discussions but, so far, none of them had ever put his, or her, head back on their shoulders and won the argument.

Faced with Methos’s sword, the emerging figured paused—even as it was registering on Methos that it bore no Presence! None! Not thrill. Not a chill. And, as result, he was filled with a sense of astonishment and of awe. This might, indeed, be a god.

The door closed. The lightning vanished. They stared at each other. Methos blinked. Whoever it was, was no Olympian Zeus.

Thoth, possibly—though Methos couldn’t recall Thoth ever being described as wearing hip-hugging blue trews on his skinny shaks, or an open leather tunic—the ibis-like appearance was accentuated by a centurion’s crop.

In any event, god or man, it was advancing with a hand thrust forward, and looked perfectly delighted to see Methos.

 _“Salve!”_ It cried.“It’s you! This is Brilliant! And here I was, looking for a librarian! I wanted to check on something Plato wrote but I can’t seem to find the Philosophy section. Am I in the right building?”

“Who…?” Methos said.

“Exactly! Forget my head next. I’m the Physician.”

“Physician?”

“Yes. Remember? Londinium, behind the queen’s house made of golden ice where the temple of Mithras used to be? About…” He began counting his fingers. “One thousand four-hundred and forty-three years from…”

There was a crash below them. The Physician’s chatter ceased and his smile faded. He seemed finally to comprehend the battered state of Methos’s countenance and blood stained his tunic. “Say, friend,” he said, “you wouldn’t happen to know what year this is?”

“The sixth consulate of the Emperor Theodosius.”

“And the current bishop of Alexandria…?”

“Cyril. May his flesh be placed in the mouths of dogs.”

“Ah,” the one who called himself the Physician said. “Bad timing.”

From the sounds of the hammering below, the Chrestians had returned with tools and were breaking down the stairway door. Maybe he could still get out through the roof! He turned to run, but the Physician grabbed his wrist.

“Come on! They’re going to burn the books. Do you want to be incinerated with them?” He was urging Methos toward the shrine.

 _Enter inside that thing?_ Methos pulled away but the Physician was stronger than he looked. “Come with me, if you want to live!”

_The fire below? Or the lightning inside?_

Either way, he was going to burn to death. Possibly, the lightning would be quicker, this time...

_...No sword! No shoes! No…Presence?_

Duncan ticked the last item and stopped running.

Methos and the kite-flyers were off on the grass. The blonde and the dark-haired military type had hitched themselves on a picnic table, the better to watch Methos and their friend who were, apparently, acquainted. And, while the man might have been one of Methos’s own priestly tribe, he was no immortal.

Still Methos had his fist in the other man’s face, and was snarling like he meant it, _“Caro putrida es!”_

The stranger shrugged, fluttering his hands. _“Vere dicis? Pavesco, pavesco.”_

As Duncan strolled up to the picnic table, the audience obligingly scooted over to make room for him. Since there didn’t seem to be any immediate reason not to, Duncan hitched himself onto it, as well. The man introduced himself, “Captain Jack Harkness.”

“MacLeod. Duncan,” Duncan said, trying to quell the sudden fizzing in his tummy. Harkness’s smile could have generated life in primordial pools. Obviously, he knew it; he held Duncan’s hand just a shade too long. “And this is Rose,” he said.

Rose grinned at him, like she knew.

_“Quicumque ubi sunt, qui fuerant, quique future sunt posthac stulti…”_

“And that’s the doctor,” Rose said.

Methos and the doctor were still exchanging pleasantries. The doctor paused for breath. Methos put his thumb to his nose and gave it a flick. _“Cave, vomiturus sum.”_

“Who’s your friend?” Rose said.

“I’m not sure today,” Duncan said.

Rose’s accent was pure East End; Harkness was definitely American. Neither of them appeared to be puzzled by Duncan’s remark.

_“Non tu tibi istam praetruncari linguam largiloquam iubes?”_

_“Fur! Etiam fur!”_

_“Trifurcifer!”_

_“Te futueo et caballum tuum!”_

_“Ut si! Nates pilosas, fili, non potes asse venditare.”_

Harkness seemed to be getting at least the gist of it. He wrinkled his nose, and said, thoughtfully, “I’d give at least a pound.” He turned The Smile on Duncan. “You look awfully familiar. Have we met before?”

“No,” Duncan said. “I’d remember.”

“Oh, I do. It’s just that that, you know…” Harkness spread his arms in a gesture that took in both the Doctor and Methos. “They’re having fun; we could, too.”

“Do you always work this fast?” Duncan said.

Harkness spread his arms wider, figuratively including both Duncan and Rose within his embrace, and raised an eyebrow. “Carpet dime.”

“Ignore him,” Rose said. “He’s the king of gay chicken.”

“Bi-chicken, please.” Harkness looked soulful, as he confided, “Found her dangling from a barrage balloon during the Blitz. Moonlight, Messerschmitts, and a searchlight on her glorious butt…” Harkness’s smile softened with memory. “I had her in my arms ten minutes after I saw her. It was romantic!”

“Then so’s a fever blister!”

_“…quin tu istanc orationem hinc veterem amoves!”_

“I caught you!”

__“_ Turpiculo puella naso… _ _”___

“Oh, my god!”

Methos had landed a punch.

Duncan jumped off the table...

...The Physician draped his leather tunic around Methos’s shoulder but it was the date wine that stopped the chattering of his teeth and let him understand what had happened.

“You move in time!”

“And space! We’ll do the stars!”

“Stars? What are…?”

“Oh, right, I expect you don’t know yet. Those lights are other suns—far, far, away and long ago. And there are other worlds orbiting those suns.” The Physician drew circles in the air. “With life on them. Intelligent life. Other races. Other species. You’ll love traveling in the TARDIS.”

“Tar-dis?” Since nothing made sense, Methos grabbed hold the strange the word and tried it out.

“Time and relative dimensions in space. My ship.”

“Ship?” He knew that word.“Fraid she’s stuck as a blue pliss baux, but she’s a good old girl.”

Methos stared at The Physician. “Blue shrine is blue 'pliss baux'?”

“Yes!” The Physician beamed at him.

“Blue shrine is your ship!”

“Exactly! See! I knew you were the one.” Methos sipped date wine from the gray cup, while The Physician babbled.

_‘…must be a shock…didn’t know when…think of the fun…other places...other times…an eternal companion…’_

Eternal companion? The Physician was _not_ immortal. He was mad. Methos let the madman carry on.

A flock of brown goats was coming in from the desert. The click-clacking of their hooves, and the bone clappers around their necks, picked up as they smelled the water. The shepherd, though, a young woman, stopped at the sight of the strangers, and stared. Then she ran forward and threw herself at Methos’s feet.

“Kassapu! I made a smoke offering!”

“Se'i napšati. Seek life,” Methos said, bending to unwind her arms from around his knees. “Thank you,” he remembered her name. “Hilitu of the black hair. But now the wine is in the dirt. Pray fetch more.” She was sobbing, with fear as lifted her up; he must look ghastly. “And water. Bring water.”

Hilitu ran.

“Fantastic!” the Physician crowed. “She knew you!”

Methos closed his eyes, breathing slowly. Yes, she knew him; nothing can be hidden in the desert.

He had taken the head of Kishartu on a moon bright night. When he had walked out of the quickening, the people here had greeted him as a witch, and a demon. He had left soon after that and had never come back, knowing the story would vanish in the wind. The whole thing might have been a nightmare...except one of the goats tired to climb up on the bench beside him.

It butted at his hand. He fended it off. You cannot dream the stink of goats. Or puke. Or blood. Hilitu would be back with soon with wine, and water, and linen to wash his feet.

Methos looked at the Physician. “What you are saying is that you will take me anywhere?”

“Any where you want to, and any time,” The Physician said.

“There’s some where I would like you to take me, and something I would like to have,” Methos said.

 

TBC

 

 

 

 


End file.
